its been sometime since I last came on here as I seem to be fairly stable on Dronedarone at the moment. My new worry is that on Monday my 18 year old grandaughter had a bout of palpitations that really frightened her and she felt she was going to pass out. Im not sure if this has happened before but it really took her by surprise. She has for quite a few years had problems with very severe headaches and tiredness for which she has been treated with several different drugs.

With no sucess.

I got her to get a doctor appointment for the next day, which she did and mentioned to him that I have had AF for some years and that her mother also gets palpitations also her uncle and second cousin. He said it was very unlikely at her age that she would have something like AF but he would do an Ecg and blood test today.

She was feeling fine had the ecg at 8.15am and went home.... by 11am the doctor was on the phone telling her that it had showed signs of AF and that he was refering her to a cardiologist. I was amazed to be honest.

My question is......does anyone think that the headaches are due to AF and maybe the tiredness too. She is the mum of an 8 month old but was always sleeping a lot before the baby came along. And what can be done at this young age. Does anyone know of anyone else of this age with this.

13 Replies

It is not common in one so young but really not unknown. At her age the best way forward might be ablation of course but that depends a lot on the rest of her heart and if there are any other problems in there. It seems that there is increased anicdotal evidence of AF running in families so maybe not that surprising. One day somebody will isolate a gene pointing the way but for now we just muddle along really.

Sorry to hear... We know what might be ahead of them! My 19 year old son had bouts of tachycardia and arrythmias for a few weeks. They did a holter which showed a few blips nothing more. I tried to not get my son worked up about it so it would not add as a stress factor. Perhaps expose her to stress reducing programs, meditation, yoga... whatever pleases her. Would be a huge gift for later in life. I hope things work out for you both. Courage!

PS, when he stopped eating too much beef his palps stopped, but then they were NOT identified as AF.

Never easy when it comes from the parent! If she is gadget oriented, HeartMath has come out with an attachment to the Iphone so you can train in heart rate variability with the Iphone. Westerners form of meditation - whatever works! Best wishes for a calm holiday season!

Sorry to hear of your granddaughter's diagnosis, hope she gets good treatment. On the headaches, there is a strong link between a hole in the heart and migraines and AF. I didn't know I had a hole in the heart until I had an ablation as it didn't show up on echocardiogram or the TOE. Approximately 20% of the population have this condition, most unknowingly as it causes no symptoms and very few require treatment, apart for the new born babies that you hear about.

Since my ablations I have had no more AF and interestingly, no more headaches!

Hi after reading Koll response I did Wikipedia for Jessy J , says she had a stroke caused by wolf parkinson white syndrome diagnosed age 12, never mentioned AF ? odd as Koll heard it from her own mouth on radio , beside the point except to say when I got diagnosed this year my daughter aged 41was worried so went for check up and was told she was fine and too young to habr it ? I wish you and all your family well x